On Tuesday, the White House issued an executive order claiming to reduce the cost of prescription drugs for Americans.
Sounds good, right?
Not so fast.
Unfortunately, one of the provisions in the executive order calls for delaying Medicare’s ability to negotiate the price of certain common drugs, something that would require congressional action.
In 2022, the Biden administration signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which delivered a historic win for working families and retirees in allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs.
However, under the new executive order, negotiations on some drugs would be delayed by years, allowing pharmaceutical companies to continue charging whatever they like for them.
This is a nice win for Big Pharma, which fought for this change, not working families.
At the same time, the executive order calls for importing lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada. However, with Canada facing steep tariffs from the U.S., it’s unclear whether this maneuver would benefit working families or retirees.
In fact, the White House’s tariffs may raise the costs of importing drugs or worse, leading to drug shortages.
Even though some of these provisions cannot be implemented without approval from Congress, it’s a clear statement that this White House cares more about pharma executives than workers and retirees.
What there should be no doubt about, however, is that anti-union extremists are trying to cut public services to pay for billionaire tax breaks — a move that will hurt your bottom line.
That’s why we all need to Get Organized. Get Organized, or AFSCME GO, is all about making sure every AFSCME member knows what’s at stake and joins the fight to protect the services we provide.
The bigger we are, the more power we have to say working people shouldn’t just get by — we demand to thrive.